An automatically controlled washing machine having a detergent inlet device embodied as a drawer in the housing that is accessible from the front, having at least one chamber disposed in the front region of the drawer for manually measured addition of a portion of laundry treatment agent and with a reservoir tank for liquid laundry treatment agent mounted inside the drawer.
Such a washing machine is known from DE 34 03 622 A1, in which a drawer for a detergent inlet device is described which has chambers in the front region for manually measured individual portions of liquid or powder laundry treatment agents. In the drawer one or more reservoir tanks, in which liquid laundry treatment agents for multiple washing processes can be stored, are built in behind the chambers. The drawer occupies almost the entire depth of the washing machine housing at least, in order that as great a quantity of liquid laundry treatment agent as possible can be stored. To enable this reservoir tank to be filled, a refill opening is disposed on its top side that only becomes visible to and moves into a reachable position for the operator if the drawer has been pulled out of the housing of the washing machine beyond the distance which corresponds to the depth of the detergent chambers. In most cases the front edge of the work surface that ends above protrudes slightly further still, so that the distance required in order to reach the filling position is very great and thus places heavy demands on the guide of the drawer in the housing of the washing machine.
In the washing machine described in DE 34 03 628 A1, general replenishment with quantities of liquid laundry treatment agents was provided as an alternative to individual manual measuring of individual portions of liquid or powder laundry treatment agents into respective chambers arranged in the drawer. For this reason, all chambers used for holding individual portions of laundry treatment agent, as was previously the case, have been replaced by reservoir tanks. The reservoir tanks occupy the entire space that a detergent drawer between the front and rear walls of a washing machine is able to provide, with the exception of the space for one or more metering devices. The possibility of manual individual metering through a metering chamber in front of the reservoir tank, which itself serves to meter the stored laundry treatment agent, clearly shows that in no way is only one chamber provided exclusively for dispensing an individual portion of liquid or powder laundry treatment agent.
Another washing machine having a detergent inlet device embodied as a drawer in the housing accessible from the front and chambers disposed in the front region of the drawer for manually measured addition of detergent, and with a reservoir tank for liquid detergents mounted inside the drawer, is known from DE 10 2007 023 065 A1.